


Sickly Steph and Bold Bee

by Mathmagical



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 1930s, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, F/F, Female Bucky Barnes, Female Steve Rogers, Femslash, Forbidden Love, Hurt/Comfort, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 12:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17345273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mathmagical/pseuds/Mathmagical
Summary: Stephanie Rogers and Jamie "Bee" Barnes were your cliche since birth best friends. They couldn't be more opposite, of course. Bold Bee, pushing the limits with scandalous red lipsticks and with boys behind soda shops and Sickly Steph, always ready to start a fight and holding big ideas for what the future could hold for females like them. They worked well though, despite their differences. They balanced each other's extremes with their own and well if they left lingering looks at each other's lips or hips too long, well no one noticed anyway.It began the summer of 1935. Two girls who loved each other maybe a bit too much. It was before Stone wall, before the war and before they both really knew who they were. They were just girls. Just best friends. Nothing more. Right?





	Sickly Steph and Bold Bee

July 4th, 1918  
Sarah Rogers lay in a hospital bed screaming as she brought her child into the world. She may alone, her sweetie off doing his best for their country during a savage war. Her fellow nurse and best friend made attempts to console the woman through the pains of bringing life into this world, she herself having done so just a year before knew the pain. This birth though, was especially treacherous. Her baby wasn't due til September, but here they were.  
Finally it was over. The doctor held up a small child, a sickly future blatant in the fragility of the babe, and smacked their bottom to induce crying before handing the child over to the mother.  
Sarah sobbed once more, cradling the literal fruits of her labor. "Stephanie. That's what I'll call you, love. Stephanie Rogers." She pulled her baby girl close and knew it was worth it.  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 1st, 1935

"One of these days, that big mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble, doll face" Bee wiped off her makeup, making eye contact with her best friend's reflection in the mirror. Stephanie, or Steph as Bee liked to called her, watched, fascinated, for the thousandth time as Jamie Barnes, confident show stopper, became just 'Bee', just a girl instead of a dream. She came apart in just a few steps. First the sticky gloss the boys loved was discarded. Then the bordering between scandalous and fashionable clothes were discarded in exchange for light polka dot night gowns. Then her plastic demeanor unfolded. Her posture relaxed and her perfect smile became a little more crooked and a little more real, even more perfect if you asked Steph. Not that she would ever tell Bee that. Not that she would ever tell herself. "Your big mouth is already trouble." "My big mouth is what keeps us out of trouble. I kiss boys til they forget all the things you say. I make them forget everything." She shot her a salacious smile as she moved into step two of her unbecoming. Steph averted her eyes politely as she unbuttoned her blouse without a care in the world. Steph didn't care much for blouses. She felt the looseness only emphasized her small stature, stunted by sickness. Skirts weren't much in her taste either. She couldn't pull off femininity like Bee did. On her it was an armor, even a weapon. On Steph it was was a sorry attempt at looking like the woman it felt like she would never be.

"Yeah yeah yeah, I know I'm so lucky to have you to keep me safe yada yada yada. Don't forget the time that lecher Sam Wells thought he could get away with some skirt lifting and I had to set him straight because you were too coy to."  
"What's your story, morning glory? He wasn't trying nothing, besides maybe I liked the way his blinkers took to my gams." She wiggled her eyebrows while slipping on her pjs. "He didn't mean nothing by it, he just couldn't help but take a look, none of the boys can. I don't blame them. You didn't have to go after him like that, doll, and really you're too down to be going after men like that, ya know? A girl like you could really get yourself hurt."   
Steph was relatively amicable (key word, relatively) to most people, but there were two things that without a doubt triggered her 'less than ladylike' behavior. One, anyone so much as glancing at Bee in an unkind (or too kind in some cases) way and two, bullies. She was a small, and by some accounts, frail, girl, but when she found her idea of injustice afoot she couldn't help but fire in guns ablazing. More than an appropriate amount of times for a girl her age, she had taken to letting her opinion of a gentlemen known in a loud voice, or in extreme circumstances, light use of her extremities to get the message across. This attempts may have been in vain when considering how intimidating a 5'1, 90 pound gal could be, but Steph's mother was always a bit terrified she would get in the face of the wrong man and end up on the wrong end of a gat. "I'm just trying to look out for you! You have no idea how sleazy some of those greazeballs can be. You're risking more than your reputation messing around with them like that." She laid back in Bee's bed, in her simple blue bedclothes and sighed.   
Bee climbed in next to her and wrapped an arm around her, "I know, sweet thing, but you have to trust me. I can handle myself. I've never been one to let myself be taken advantages of. I've got all those Joes' wrapped around my finger and I'm just running them for the free milkshakes, drive ins and to keep the loneliness away."  
Steph leaned against her, "I'm your best friend, ain't I? Aren't I enough to keep the loneliness away?"   
She chuckled a bit in response, "I don't mean that kind of loneliness, doll, I mean the more intimate kind that you're too young to bother with," She booped her nose with a wink, and ignored her cries about only being a year younger, "Quiet down youngen. We should take a snooze before pops comes in to check on us."   
"Fineeee," she turned off the lamp as one of their semiweekly sleepovers came to a night. Some people might raise a brow at the girls sharing a bed during these nights, but their closeness had reached a point of no boundaries. Not only that but, with the depression hit, not everyone could afford a spare spot for a friend to sleep. The girls cuddled together in the darkness, the familiar press of their bodies, a comfort kin to holding a loved teddy. Listening to her best girl's soft breathing, Steph burned the scene into her memory. It was the soft, intimate moments these she found herself secretly wishing would last forever.   
"Goodnight, bumblebee."  
"Goodnight, dollface."


End file.
